As a restaurant owner, keeping the cost of utilities as low as possible without sacrificing the efficiency of your business should be one of your top priorities. This means paying attention to your gas, electric, and water consumption regularly and being on top of repairs and replacements needed in order to keep utility costs manageable.

Restaurants spend a whole lot on utilities, right up there with food and labor when it comes to their major costs. 

According to Energy Star, food service businesses use an average of 38 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 111 cubic feet of natural gas per square foot, which is about 2.5 times more than the numbers pumped out by other types of commercial buildings. 

And because restaurants usually have such narrow profit margins that bloated utility bills can have a great impact on your profits.

How Much Electricity Does a Restaurant Use per Month?

There are utilities that should become relatively fixed costs over time. This includes water, phone, and internet access. 

The more variable utilities such as electricity (which goes up and down depending on the season, heating, and air conditioning) and gas or oil (also prone to fluctuation, depending on how the international markets are doing) are what you should be more focused about.

There’s nothing you can do about the weather or the world market, so you need to focus on the short and long term actions you can do to make your restaurant as energy efficient as possible. Not only will this do your profits well, but you can also feel great about being more environment-friendly.

What Can You Do To Cut Utility Costs?

Here are the practices you can implement to manage your restaurant’s utility costs effectively.

• Check Your Lighting

Lights don’t usually cost as much compared to other electrical usage, but given the number of lights operating even in a small restaurant, the cost of usage can add up. When it comes to your lighting, pay attention to the following:

• Make sure that bulbs and light fixtures are clean so they will work properly.
• If your restaurant is blessed with natural sunlight, turn off or dim the lights unless needed.
• Use more energy-efficient bulbs such as Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL). Not just on your interiors, but also on your walk-in refrigerators and kitchen ventilation hoods. If you replace 20 100-watt bulbs with CFLs, you can save more than $400 on lights per year.
• For signs, use LED lights, which uses only 5 watts for the same amount of light compared to incandescent bulbs to be used for your menu boards and exit signs.
• Install occupancy sensors in rooms that are only used occasionally, such as bathrooms, certain storage areas, and walk-in coolers.

• Establish peak and off hours for your utilities

It’s common to leave the lights, fans, and other equipment running even though your restaurant is already closed for the night and everyone has gone home. Make it a practice to turn off certain utilities during these downtimes.

Utilize the thermostats to lower the blasts of air-conditioning during off-peak hours and look into programmable features that will shut down your other equipment when your restaurant is already closed. 

This is also a good time to train your staff to switch utilities on and off on schedule – the last person to leave the place should make sure that lights, fans, cooking equipment, and back office equipment should turn off all these.

• Monitor Water Consumption

Hot water leaks can result in hundreds of dollars wasted per year, so always keep an eye out for those. Reduce the usage of hot water in each of your hand sinks by 60 percent by installing low-flow aerators. You can also put a high-efficiency pre-rinse spray valve in your dish room so you can save $300 to $350 in water, sewer, and natural gas costs per year.

If your restaurant has already aged considerably, consider having a plumber in Fontana look into your pipes to make sure that everything is still in place and working efficiently.

• Maintain Comfortable Temperatures

Your restaurant doesn’t have to be so cold for it to become comfortable for your diners. Cut down on air conditioning costs by putting clear, heat-rejecting window films to your large windows. Installing ceiling fans will keep the room cool and allow you to use your air conditioning less.

Leaving refrigerators and freezers open for a long time will certainly harm your electric bill, so make sure that the doors are aligned and closing properly. For walk-in freezers, check the strip curtains regularly and repair when needed. If you’re not making use of strip curtains, it’s high time that you use them.

• Change Filters Regularly

From water filtration system to your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, makes it a priority to replace filters regularly. Dirty filters will make your equipment use more energy in order to work efficiently. 

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning filters should be changed at least once a month preferably more, if your restaurant is located next to a construction site or a highway.

• Invest in Smart Equipment

The market is abundant with high-efficiency and energy-saving equipment that will help cut down your utility costs. There are induction cookware and light wave ovens that are up to 30 percent more energy efficient compared to older equipment.

If you’re considering replacing your exhaust fans, get one of those smart vent hoods that use photoelectric smoke or heat detectors to determine the usage of the exhaust fan. It may cost a lot, but consider the savings in energy costs that you will accumulate later on. 

For your water system, a proper filter prevents calcification buildup and mineral deposits that can make your system less efficient.

As a restaurant owner, you should have a go-to plumbing service who can meet your plumbing needs quickly and efficiently. 

Bobby Blue Plumbing proudly serves restaurant owners within and around the Inland Empire, including the surrounding cities of Ontario, Murrieta, Riverside, San Bernardino, and more. We also provide 24-hour plumbing services that will definitely come in handy in emergency situations.